


Men like coffee, sweet and frothy

by Patience_on_a_Monument



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Bad Flirting, Coffee Shops, Flirting, Fluff, It's a lot of fluff, M/M, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Specifically Viktor's, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 21:00:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9625154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patience_on_a_Monument/pseuds/Patience_on_a_Monument
Summary: Viktor starts a new job at his favourite coffee shop and immediately starts up flirting with the cute barista he's been fawning over forever. There are mixed results.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I see a lot of Coffee shops around here, so I thought I'd start my own and see how it goes. I am very proud of my gingerbread muffins.

It was early afternoon on an unusually hot Spring day that Viktor pushed his way into his new part time job, and he idly plucked at the neck of his t-shirt as he adjusted to the comfortably warm café atmosphere. There was a nervous bounce in his step, and he hummed to himself as he waited in line for a chance to talk to the pale gangly thing grumbling into the beans and squeaking out orders behind the till, zooming between delicate columns of cups.

The smell of fresh coffee was always what he loved first and foremost, with taste highly appreciated but never truly able to make up for the aroma. And this little corner coffee shop in the market centre of town was steeped in it. Soft furnishings and bookcases that had been here long enough to absorb the essence littered the floor in haphazard arrangements from being pulled into endless seating variations. Customers were dotted haphazardly across them, accompanied by books, laptops and the occasional dog (the dog-friendly policy obviously had nothing to do with why this place was so high on his list of favourite caffeination stations).

Gangly dangles himself over the counter to hold out a clammy hand in welcome when Viktor introduces himself as the new start, and Viktor dons his best showman smile when he accepts it. The unfortunate puberty punching bag rambles off a name and list of bland pleasantries that dim into a haze at the back of his mind while he smiles and nods and extracts his hand, before having a bundle of cloth shoved into it. He _knows_ there’s a much cuter co-worker stashed here somewhere, he just needs to find out where he’s hidden and navigate himself there. A homing Viktor. Preferably without looking _too_ much like a creep.

“So basically that’s all I have time to introduce you to!” Gangly creaks out, snapping Viktor back to the present. “Just, I’m getting off shift soon since I was here at opening. My – I mean our – co-worker Yuuri is through the back with the dishes I think. He’s really nice, and he can walk you through most of what you have to do here! So, uh, I’ll see you soon, but in the meantime my public awaits!” he manages before awkwardly gesturing at the impatient mumbling crowd amassing behind Viktor.

Jackpot!

Sidestepping around the counter, Viktor steps into clean white tiled unexplored country, newly bedecked in an ocean blue apron he thinks should hopefully bring out his eyes. There he is; apple of his eye, his cute little piglet, the object of his constant affection every time he enters this building. Cutest barista this side of the Atlantic Ocean. Blue apron and terribly tacky name tag didn’t do a lot for his beloved Yuuri, but the view of his jeans-clad ass as he leaned over the basin certainly did.

“Yuuuurriii. How’ve you bean?” he drawls out of his most seductive smile.

There’s a startled jerk of the shoulders hunched over the sink, and then a slow turn of a head towards him. The look of shock on soft features melts into… narrowed eyes and a tight mouth. It’s still a good look.

_Ah_. Maybe this plan required further thought.

“They had a sign in the window saying they needed help, so I thought what better way to get to know the locals?” It started off as a croon but seemed to dissolve half way through into an apologetic whimper, which was definitely not the intended outcome. “Do you know any locals worth knowing?”

Yuuri turns around fully and drags one of his wet hands through his hair, pulling it back off his forehead in frustration as Viktor tries and fails to suppress a full-body shiver.

“Oh look, it’s my favourite loitering regular. You’re the new guy now?”

_Ouch_. He tries to hide in the flinch in a giggle, and is almost halfway successful.

“You know you’re happy to see me more, and if not we have to rectify that. We should get to know each other better now we’re colleagues! Be my trainer?” He bounces on his heels and extends his hand in a mirror of the move pale nasally Gangly used on him earlier, and he hopes his hands are okay but it’s too late for a sneaky hand-wipe now. 

Surprisingly, that one works and he gets a small smile before Yuuri furiously wipes his hands on a nearby cloth and goes in to return the handshake. Viktor thinks if he looks very closely he’d see a blush. He tries valiantly to stop his own blush return the greeting.

“I guess we should get to know each other better,” Yuuri returns with an oddly fox-like smirk that sent delicious shivers up Viktor’s spine straight into the short hair at the back of his neck. “What sort of coffee do you like best? Which bean regions do you prefer? Do you have anyone you like?”

Viktor’s entire being lit up with the approaching challenge, illuminating his smile from the soul inside. 

This was going to be fun.

An hour later finds Gangly gone and Yuuri using a lull in customers to school Viktor thoroughly in the intricacies of their various coffee grinders and coffee machines. Viktor was in a very comfortable place, surrounded as he was by the smell of coffee and the sight of Yuuri’s nape as he bent over the percolator in concentration. He was half paying attention to syrup volumes and the difference between making a latte and a cappuccino. Yes, yes, he’d ordered coffee before, how hard can it be to reverse engineer from a lifetime of consuming caffeine? And if he gets an order wrong he gets to ask Yuuri for help again, which will always be a welcome event. Always.

He picks himself back out of his haze to go back to actively staring at the contours of Yuuri’s face. Cute nose, just the faintest softness and the most beautiful mocha eyes imaginable, especially when focussed as they were now. He slowly, gently, stealthily leaned in and raised a long finger to the corner of Yuuri’s jaw to draw it along the line to his chin.

“You’re so hot when you’re concentrating, Yuuri” he purred from deep in his chest.  
It was a mistake.

Rather than responding with the steel and snark he had encountered earlier that afternoon, Yuuri instead gave rise to an incredible and immediate shade of red in his cheeks as a slew of vowels tumbled from his throat and as his fingers fumbled the jug of steamed milk he had been holding.

Viktor thought that slow motion was invented for cinema, but the jug took hours to reach the ground and he felt his heartbeat with every inch it fell. He watched as Yuuri reached to catch it and then remembered himself and withdrew as far as he could, and he felt as his own body curled away with his gaze still locked on the tragedy in progress. The jug bounced ever so lethargically against the counter side and then finally clattered to the floor, leaving a steaming trail across the wood and tile and painting the café in sweet bubbly white. 

A beat of silence

Viktor took a moment to take in the devastation around him and felt the body beside him tensing in place. He turned to lock eyes, and released a nervous chuckle. He saw shock, panic, annoyance and then finally mirth pass across Yuuri’s face before they were both giggle and frantically checking themselves over, luckily scald free.

“Please, _please_ , warn me before you do something like that again. And mind your timing better?” Yuuri asked between fading chuckles as he wiped the last of the splashes off his apron and jeans.

“Oh? So you would not be too disinterested in my making a move on you here again? I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to another attempt.” Viktor tried not to sound too pleased, but it was difficult and he could feel the smug bubbling up through him. “It’s already pretty steamy in here, it would just be fitting.”

Yuuri dipped his eyes away, and brushed himself off one last time and picked up a tray of dirty crockery. “I'd say it was getting more muggy than steamed” he heard murmured into a ceramic cup and his mind occupied itself with how his own runneth over with joy. It was going to be very difficult to get any work done in this job with such a good distraction.

Not that the distractions hadn't been the point of working here.

“Will you spend your break with me?” Viktor blurts out. Except that can’t be right because Viktor wouldn’t blurt, blurting was not anywhere in his very specific plan for how day one on the job would pan out.

He’s rewarded for his blunder with the laugh that he imagined when he was taught about angels in his church sermons.

“We can’t take break at the same time Viktor, who would look after the counter? Did you think this through?”

“Ah…ha. Maybe my planning could have taken some further work, but I’m sure I can overcome this obstacle!” he bantered back, but it sounded weak to his own ears. This was going terribly. It was a minor miracle that Yuuri hadn’t shuffled him right back out the door already and reported him as an unsuitable recruit to the owner. As a further kick to the ego he remembered that this was a half-shift and he didn’t have a break anyway, but luckily Yuuri had been kind enough to at least not point that out to his face.

Viktor goes to wash dishes while he licked his wounded pride and re-evaluated some crucial life decisions, such as whether it would have been better to have stayed a customer and continued his flirtations over the counter than just plunging into a new job. He hadn’t really been doing that much in the off-season, and he felt he was beginning to wind down anyway, and so had nothing to lose by hiding away in a teeny café in the middle of nowhere anyone would ever look. 

And it got him here, up to his elbows in suds and scraping pitifully at lipstick stains and wiping the smears of dripped paninis from plates and he hated it. These were strangers’ leftovers! Why even bother with a prewash, just shove it in the washer and let it do the work! He could feel himself begin to heat up at the indignity of it when a dark haired head poked round the corner to rouse him from his mopey vegetating. 

“You’ve been back here a while, Viktor, do you want to try your skills at making some of the coffees for a while?” Yuuri chirped. “I’ll be watching your back so there isn’t any pressure”. Viktor thought he could never love Yuuri more than he did right then for saving him from his drudgery like a sopping Cinderella.

“Yuuri, you couldn’t stop me! Please look after me!” he cooed with a ridiculous smile, finishing the dishes and getting himself dry and respectable in record time.

He hates making the drinks as well.

Customers are loud, impatient, and there are too many of them in the leaving-work rush, and they come out with the most ridiculous orders (which makes him feel almost bad about his quad caramel soy cappuccino, if only it wasn’t so delicious). He craves the simplicity of a green tea -or even better- a bottle, the carnage is immensely held by a calm and quiet voice in his ear whispering very welcome help and praise, and a warm body beside him picking out ingredients from high shelves and dipping low into warm cupboards. 

_You’re doing so well Viktor_

_It’s like you’ve been making these for years_

_They love you already_

That he could get used to. He had a sneaky feeling that some of the commendations were unwarranted and Yuuri was testing the boundaries of how flustered you could be and still pour a jug into a tall glass, but that was very welcome too.

He sees a blond head come into the shop while they are quietly polishing silver in the almost empty coffee house and turns to look straight into the bottle green eyes of a very confused Yuri. A Yuri who visibly bristles when he looks between Yuuri and himself before brusquely dropping a bottle of water, an iced coffee and a note onto the counter and pinning him with a stare.

“Keep yourself under control in front of the customers, old man” he offers with a fond smile before he picks up his change and leaves a stunned Viktor in his wake, pulling the door open and letting in the soft rumble of a V-twin.

“What was that about, Vitya?” Yuuri asked softly, coming up behind him to wrap an arm around his waist and rest his chin on a shoulder.

“Just Yuratchka looking out for us, I think. He has some luck finding us on my first day though. Has he been round here before?”

Yuuri yawned wide, and Viktor thought that must surely be the cutest thing Yuuri has done in the last few minutes. “Not that I can remember, maybe when I wasn’t working? This is likely just the first place they could find between here and the road into the countryside. I think they said something about a weekend away somewhere.”

“You need to stop working so hard, love,” Viktor hummed, and settled into the half-hug. "You’ll go grey! I’m sure I’ve been seeing some salt in your pepper these last few years – not that you don’t make it look very appealing. _I do like my katsudon well-seasoned_.”

Yuuri gives him a light push with his shoulder.

“You are terrible. And speak for yourself.” There’s a soft sigh. “Is this really what you wanted to do with your retirement? I only started working here to do something that’s not skating for a change after decades of not knowing anything else. You could have at least told me that you were going to be working here now!”

“Where’s the surprise in that?” Viktor crowed. “And I’m happy to be wherever you are, Yura.”

“You are such a cliché. Let’s close up and go home.” 

“Hai!”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry I couldn't help it I just love the thought of them being old and grey and married and still disgustingly sappy.


End file.
